Day 11
Today the trek is only 4.5 hours or 11 kilometers, but we have to be at the boat before it “sails” at 1:00 to return us to EcoCamp. EcoCamp is where we left three days ago and where our belongings are, where we started, and where it feels like a luxury hotel compared to the refugios.
After 29 kilometers yesterday, it is pretty amazing that I CAN walk. At first, it is painful, actually funny to watch, because we are so stiff. But warmed up muscles literally hit their stride before too long.
Hiking has become a way of life. I have not looked at my watch all week, unlike Lena who keeps track of the time and her rate and her kilometers. Pamela has a wrist band that says she slept an hour and a half last night in her bunk bed. Is the truth harder? Michael, too, just keeps on putting one foot in front of the other. All day.
On this kind of trail, after only a few minutes. I am in the middle of the pack with a lift in my heels again, which means pretty much on my own. I can carry the camera.
We nibble on calafate berries. Big blue ones grow in abundance this time of year on knee high thorny bushes. We have to pick them very carefully. They taste yummy with little black seeds to spit out or chew on. We also see lots of the red berries that taste like miniature apples.
Every hour there are more birds to add to my list. In the buffeting winds, their adapted life styles are fascinating: the American Kestrel (falcon), the white throated katta katta (walks like a penguin making the sound katta katta), the konkon owl, the pigmy owl, the black neck swan, a flamingo, and the condor whose wings look like long fingers.
We all see a grey fox and I see a brown huge fox that is larger than a big dog. I think it is a wolf. Luckily it was scared to the other hiker who was chasing it with her camera. Oh my.
The temperatures change with wind, rain, sun and new ecosystems all day long. I am always zipping and unzipping my fleece and light parka. I pull up my neck band to cover my nose in the wind. Take off the hat, put it back on. I dream up a parka that will scrunch neatly into my day pack. Maybe like a venetian blind or a roman shade. Why do I have to keep hassling with this thing? my raincoat, shoved in my waist pack, doesn’t breathe at all. I get more water from condensation on the inside of the jacket than it rains on the outside!
We stride right along the edge of the lake on a smooth trail – the feet are grateful for this – arriving at a rock where the ferry will be by 12:30. The wind is strong, there are white caps on the lake, but the boat can still sail. 5% of the time, they have to cancel the crossing because of the weather. Roberto is one relieved guide.
The ferry docks in the lake waters at a mooring, then sends a mettle dingy with a beat up prow to bounce against the rock where we are standing on the edge of basically nowhere. In two round trips, all the passengers are lowered into the dingy in rows of 5 across with life jackets. Half an hour later, we are motoring along the glacier among the white caps and ice blocks that float under the surface in this turquoise Grey Lake.
Our cruise includes a close-up view of the edge of the ice flow. It is receding like all the others in the world, except for Perito Moreno (that we saw in Argentina a few days ago). The boat stays to the sides of the massive body of ice.
There are icebergs the size of the dingy floating all through the water that is actually pretty gray and only show 1/8 of their size. The glacier melts 8 cms a day on its surface. The black is polvo dust from the surrounding land surface that blows across it. The deep blues are the denser parts that are melting to become water; the white is where more air is pocketed.
A van is waiting. It is the new one from EcoCamp. The disparate group shares the feel-at-home camaraderie as we make the drive back into our domes. Shower, change and walk back to the main dome where we join our group to enjoy a pisco sour and delicious dinner with red wine… pretty good way to camp.
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